[Admin; TRANSIT has long objected to the proposed Kinrara Damansara Expressway, as you can see from this draft post which we created 2 years ago]

TRANSIT took note of the proposal to build an elevated expressway through the heart of Petaling Jaya.

TRANSIT opposes the expressway proposal and strongly recommends that the corridor be used to build a north-south rapid transit corridor, likely a monorail or LRT line. We expect that this would cost the same or less than the proposed expressway, occupy less visual space and obviously would not bring pollution on site.

Image showing the alignment of the Kinrara-Damansara expressway, proposed in Budget 2011.

As public transportation this corridor would connect with 4 public transport corridors (either existing/under construction)…the existing KTM Komuter line in PJ Old Town, the Kelana Jaya LRT Line at Taman Jaya, and the LRT extension in Kinrara and the MRT Line, both currently under construction. There is also the proposed Federal Highway Bus Rapid Transit corridor.

This has far greater connection potential than an expressway and will move 10 times as many people.

TRANSIT Says:

We see that cities across the world are in the process of taking down elevated expressways and improving their urban realms…while we in Malaysia are unfortunately looking at building more.

We have an opportunity here to build a lasting legacy for public transportation in Petaling Jaya…let’s not mess this up.

TRANSIT took note of the following interesting article, which describes Prasarana refusing to pay compensation to the residents of the Tong Weng Mansion in Brickfields, while agreeing to pay compensation to two other site owners in the area.

The compensation requests are in relation to the KL Monorail expansion project, which will extend the KL Monorail from the Tun Sambanthan station down to MidValley and to Old Klang Road on the other side of the Federal Highway.

Interestingly enough, all three compensation requests are in relation to properties that are illegally occupying government land – a situation that seems to occur more frequently than one might expect.

Project manager Mass Rapid Transit Jakarta announced that work started on the underground section of Jakarta’s first metro line on April 4.

Excavation began at Hotel Indonesia Traffic Circle, where there will be an underground station. A guide wall is due to be completed within three months, which will allow a diaphragm wall to be built. The timescale for the completion of this and subsequent station works is four years.

In May the city authorities announced the winners of the tenders for the three underground civil works packages. Sumitomo Mitsui Construction Company and PT Hutama Karya is undertaking the work at Hotel Indonesia Traffic Circle, whereas the other two packages are being carried out by a consortium of Shimizu, Obayashi, Wijaya Karya and Jaya Konstruksi.

Two of the three elevated civil works packages will be carried out by a Tokyu-WIKA consortium, with a consortium of Obayashi, Shimizu and Jaya Konstruksi responsible for the other.

Revenue operations on the 15·7 km line are planned to start in early 2018. An 8·1 km northern extension is planned as the second phase.

The Express Rail Link from KL Sentral to KLIA2 will commence operations when the airport terminal opens to the public on May 2. There is more good news in store.

The airport’s rail company Express Rail Link (ERL) is allowing 1,000 people to have free trial rides to KLIA2 on Malaysian Airports Holdings Berhad’s KLIA2 Open Day on Sunday. Those interested can register on a first-come first-served basis from tomorrow at http://www.kliaekspres.com.

TRANSIT took note of the unfortunate news that the Selangor Government will move ahead with studies for the Kinrara Damansara Expressway, also known as KiDEx or the KiDEx “skyway” (a falsely romanticized name just as false as the pictures on their website)

This comes after the first two trains were delivered by Scomi Rail in Rawang to the depot in Brickfields for testing and commissioning in late January of 2014New four car monorail trains arrive at depot (The Star, 25 January 2014)

The new 4 carriage trains can carry 430 passengers and will have space for wheelchairs. The monorail stations are being retrofitted with chair lifts (presumably the ones that attach to stairways? Or proper lifts?) and work is expected to be finished soon.

TRANSIT Says:

As you can imagine, we are pleased to see improvements to our public transport services…even incremental ones. The KL Monorail is already a decade old and was horribly over capacity in 2005…so the new carriages are a welcome addition.

Indeed, seeing 4-carriage monorail trains may help raise public confidence that the monorail can be more than just a “toy train” and there may be demand for applications of monorail technology in other cities in the Klang Valley, such as Petaling Jaya in place of the proposed Kinrara Damansara Expressway. TRANSIT has long said that the Sunway BRT line with its RM100 million per km cost, might have been better as a monorail … and could have been extended to connect to the Kelana Jaya LRT Line at Kelana Jaya and the Ampang LRT Line at Puchong.

While the 7 month period of testing and commissioning is a bit of a surprise, we expect that this is also related to the re signalling of the monorail system which will allow for faster train movements.

Overall TRANSIT is pleased but will reserve final judgment until we ride the new trains.

Transit took note of the proposal from 4 ADUN in the Selangor State Assembly (representing Petaling Jaya) that the route of the proposed Kinrara Damansara Expressway (a.k.a. “KiDex” or “KIDEX Skyway“) would be better utilized for public transportation.

This article by fz.com is one of many with details about the new trains which will begin arrival in Malaysia in September 2014.

The important details:

*50 units of 6-car trains designed and built by CAR Zhuzhou (which also built the “Six Car Set” for KTM Komuter)
*30 of these trains will replace the trains currently used on the Ampang line … which are only entering their 20th year (generally train carriages are expected to last approximately 30 years … Although the measurement is really based on kilometers traveled rather than time in service)
*20 of the trains will be used on the Ampang line extension when it opens in 2016
*The trains will have open gangway allowing passengers to walk between all the cars (as compared to the 3 pairs of cars in the current trains) spreading out the passenger load